Hi Ballistic,
A counter-point to the info that you gave us: From a site I use often this article;
Let us briefly give a hint as to how the new cosmology seems to solve the starlight problem before explaining some preliminary items in a little more detail. Consider that the time taken for something to travel a given distance is the distance divided by the speed it is traveling. That is:
Time = Distance / Speed
When this is applied to light from distant stars, the time calculates out to be millions of years. Some have sought to challenge the distances, but this is a very unlikely answer.7
Astronomers use many different methods to measure the distances, and no informed creationist astronomer would claim that any errors would be so vast that billions of light-years could be reduced to thousands, for example. There is good evidence that our own Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across!
If the speed of light (c) has not changed, the only thing left untouched in the equation is time itself. In fact, Einstein’s relativity theories have been telling the world for decades that time is not a constant.
Two things are believed (with experimental support) to distort time in relativity theory—one is speed and the other is gravity. Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the best theory of gravity we have at present, indicates that gravity distorts time.
This effect has been measured experimentally, many times. Clocks at the top of tall buildings, where gravity is slightly less, run faster than those at the bottom, just as predicted by the equations of general relativity (GR).8
When the concentration of matter is very large or dense enough, the gravitational distortion can be so immense that even light cannot escape.9 The equations of GR show that at the invisible boundary surrounding such a concentration of matter (called the event horizon, the point at which light rays trying to escape the enormous pull of gravity bend back on themselves), time literally stands still.
Using different assumptions …
Dr Humphreys’ new creationist cosmology literally ‘falls out’ of the equations of GR, so long as one assumes that the universe has a boundary. In other words, that it has a center and an edge—that if you were to travel off into space, you would eventually come to a place beyond which there was no more matter. In this cosmology, the earth is near the center, as it appears to be as we look out into space.
This might sound like common sense, as indeed it is, but all modern secular (big bang) cosmologies deny this. That is, they make arbitrary assumption (without any scientific necessity) that the universe has no boundaries—no edge and no center. In this assumed universe, every galaxy would be surrounded by galaxies spread evenly in all directions (on a large enough scale), and so, therefore, all the net gravitational forces cancel out.
(note from me: Since the universe did have a beginning point, why assume that it has to be infinite? Time has a boundary, who not space?)
However, if the universe has boundaries, then there is a net gravitational effect toward the center. Clocks at the edge would be running at different rates to clocks on the earth. In other words, it is no longer enough to say God made the universe in six days. He certainly did, but six days by which clock? (If we say ‘God’s time’ we miss the point that He is outside of time, seeing the end from the beginning.)10
There appears to be observational evidence that the universe has expanded in the past, supported by the many phrases God uses in the Bible to tell us that at creation he ‘stretched out’11 (other verses say ‘spread out’) the heavens.
If the universe is not much bigger than we can observe, and if it was only 50 times smaller in the past than it is now, then scientific deduction based on GR means it has to have expanded out of a previous state in which it was surrounded by an event horizon (a condition known technically as a ‘white hole’—a black hole running in reverse, something permitted by the equations of GR).
As matter passed out of this event horizon, the horizon itself had to shrink—eventually to nothing. Therefore, at one point this earth (relative to a point far away from it) would have been virtually frozen. An observer on earth would not in any way ‘feel different.’ ‘Billions of years’ would be available (in the frame of reference within which it is traveling in deep space) for light to reach the earth, for stars to age, etc.—while less than one ordinary day is passing on earth. This massive gravitational time dilation would seem to be a scientific inevitability if a bounded universe expanded significantly.
In one sense, if observers on earth at that particular time could have looked out and ‘seen’ the speed with which light was moving toward them out in space, it would have appeared as if it were traveling many times faster than c. (Galaxies would also appear to be rotating faster.) However, if an observer in deep space was out there measuring the speed of light, to him it would still only be traveling at c.
There is more detail of this new cosmology, at layman’s level, in the book by Dr Humphreys, Starlight and Time, which also includes reprints of his technical papers showing the equations.12
It is fortunate that creationists did not invent such concepts such as gravitational time dilation, black and white holes, event horizons and so on, or we would likely be accused of manipulating the data to solve the problem. The interesting thing about this cosmology is that it is based upon mathematics and physics totally accepted by all cosmologists (general relativity), and it accepts (along with virtually all physicists) that there has been expansion in the past (though not from some imaginary tiny point). It requires no ‘massaging’—the results ‘fall out’ so long as one abandons the arbitrary starting point which the big bangers use (the unbounded cosmos idea, which could be called ‘what the experts don’t tell you about the “big bang”’).
Rex
WTS explanation of how old the earth is
by undercover 27 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Shining One
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finis_mundi
Dr. Humphreys is to science as the WTS is to the bible. His "science" is so bad that his publications have continously been rejected by the International Conference on Creationism (ICC - a technical conference for creation "scientists"). If one is interested in a scientific critique go here http://www.trueorigin.org/rh_connpage1.pdf . His non-cosmological arguments are even worse, he makes up "facts" and horrifically misquotes outside sources (although he could have a promising career at WTS).
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serendipity
Hi finis, welcome to the forum!
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stevenyc
Rex,
I have to admit that usually I find your comments bordering on ludicrous. No offence meant, its just that our views on the universe are polar opposites. However, when you said "Right or wrong, that's what it teaches. Live with it! " you are spot on.
steve
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heathen
I think the bible reinforces the belief that to God a day is a thousand years and a thousand years a day . It also makes sense why when God told adam he would die on the day he ate from the tree of knowledge that he continued to live over nine hundred years . The fundamental belief in a 24hr . day is completely absurd . 2 peter 3:8 It's still hard to believe that the creation days were limited to that time frame tho which they may not have been . I still think the creation story makes more sense than what science says about the earth , like a bunch of asteroids collide forming a planet is totally retarded . I don't buy that for a minute .
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Shining One
Finis,
>Dr. Humphreys is to science as the WTS is to the bible. His "science" is so bad that his publications have continously been rejected by the International Conference on Creationism (ICC - a technical conference for creation "scientists").
What does that have to do with THIS article?
>If one is interested in a scientific critique go here http://www.trueorigin.org/rh_connpage1.pdf. His non-cosmological arguments are even worse, he makes up "facts" and horrifically misquotes outside sources (although he could have a promising career at WTS).
How do you know that his prsuppositions are in error or that yours are correct, are you an authority?
Rex -
Shining One
Heathen,
>I think the bible reinforces the belief that to God a day is a thousand years and a thousand years a day
Incidental belief, what do you offer as proof?
>It also makes sense why when God told adam he would die on the day he ate from the tree of knowledge that he continued to live over nine hundred years.
No, this is the 'spritual death' and it set in course the entropy in Adam and Eve that would eventually result in their deaths. In fact, the lifespan of mankind has gotten much shorter as time goes on. Without the blessing of medical science we would be living much shorter lives.
>The fundamental belief in a 24hr . day is completely absurd . 2 peter 3:8
The Hebrew language is a difficult one but the experts say that a 24 hour day is what it means.
>It's still hard to believe that the creation days were limited to that time frame tho which they may not have been . I still think the creation story makes more sense than what science says about the earth , like a bunch of asteroids collide forming a planet is totally retarded . I don't buy that for a minute .
Uh, when you consider 48,000 years as opposed to billions of years then teaching it was done in six 24 hour days is not any different. God SPEAKS things into existence. It just happens and no time period at all is even needed!
Rex -
Shining One
Steve,
Thanks, I guess..LOL
Rex